


Enough

by PaperRevolution



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feuilly finds happiness in the promise of stories and storytelling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough

To begin with, he is tired, but it is a pleasant sort of tiredness. He has worked well, today, with diligence and efficiency, and he is pleased with the results. Waiting for him is a book he has become quite engrossed in, and it is this he is pondering, now. It had been one of those chance findings, and he is more pleased with it even than he had expected. The binding is coming apart, but that does not matter.

It is an Italian history book, and he is swept up in Venice and Rome and the hypnotic chaos of unknown places. So, naturally, he is quite startled when a young voice, shrill and pitchy, calls out:

“Monsieur! Monsieur!”

Feuilly turns. It takes him a moment to recognise the gamin. A creature nameless but not voiceless, a smile cracks his thin face into unexpected exuberance. He had given the boy a bit of bread and a story, some while ago, and felt then a deep, implacable sense of guilt that this was all he could offer. Today, his thoughts meandering as they were, they do not stick on this sore point but trundle along with a rather aimless sort of calm.

“Give us another story!” the boy all but demands, and Feuilly cannot help but be amused at his ebullience. That the child even remembers his tale – some hastily concocted thing about an Emperor's servant – seems a small wonder to him, and suddenly, he is glad for it. Such a small thing, at yet it must have brought the child some joy, or he would not think of it now; would not have marked Feuilly's face on his memory.

And so he obliges. They walk. They arc away from his intended direction, but he does not mind. It is difficult, sometimes, to paint pictures with words, but he does his best, encouraged b the way the boy hangs onto his every word. The boy peppers him with questions, and Feuilly answers every last one with growing vigour, until eventually he is laughing; laughing unashamedly and unabashedly, the sound spiralling up into the brisk evening air as though he might be a child again himself. They lose themselves in this sweeping tale of intrigue, of thwarting the corrupt Emperor and escaping his golden empire; of ships and – at the boy's request – pirates; of some free land far away. It is growing quite dark by the time the story's main character finds himself there.

“Will yer tell me the story again?” asks the boy, “Another time? I'll look our fer you.”

It is such a little thing; so insubstantial. Words, disappearing the moment they are spoken. And yet they have, for a short while at least, held at bay this child's fears and troubles; made him slide effortlessly through the last few hours rather than clamber laboriously. A story is a wonderful thing; both the teller and the listener lose themselves entirely in happy, distant bliss. It is a gift – the best he can offer this child, but also the best he can give to himself. And just now, with the moon rising and a soft wind blowing, it is quite, quite enough.


End file.
